Tarts and Hearts
by LivvieLocke
Summary: A Drusilla one shot. Dru is having a tea party but she needs guests! If you enjoyed this story, there are several more, rated for mature audiences, on my livejournal link in my user info.


Her dark eyes focused on the man before her, a man who was bound and gagged. His screams had been sweet music to her ears but had made Miss Edith quite cross. Miss Edith never cared much for screams. She would whisper that they gave her a horrible headache. She could hear the broken bits rattling around in her porcelain head. Miss Edith only wanted her cakes and dresses and tea parties today. "Today was not a day to be naughty." She had warned.

The woman hadn't listened. She circled around the man, singing in low, dulcet tones. It could have been mistaken for the voice of an angel, especially when accompanied with her sweet angelic face. But the innocence of the childlike angel was marred when the tone was laced with the woman's bloodlust. "Ring around the rosy..." The woman paused as she brushed darkly painted fingernails across the back of the man's neck. She tilted her head as she saw his hairs prick up at attention. It brought a proud smile to her blood-caked lips.

"Like little soldiers...all in a row." She spoke softly as if the slightest word would cause them all to fall over, cards blown over by too strong of a wind or rather, the escape of dead breath. A song started to spring to her mind. It was wholly different from the classic about the Black Death she had been singing moments before.

"The Black Death...what a lovely time in history." She thought to herself. She would have liked to be there though the stench of the bodies no doubt would have offended her delicate senses and sent Miss Edith into a tizzy. The song crept deeper in her mind, whispered to her by the stars that were twinkling high in the dark evening sky.

"Little soldiers in a line. Like little graves. They speak to me from under their dirt. Tell me delicious stories of war and blood soaked clothes." She said once again with amusement playing in her voice.

The man trembled under her touch as she stroked the hairs at the back of his neck. The flesh on his arms rose up in goosebumps. His fingers dug into the chair to which he was bound as he tried to fight against the vomit rising up in his throat. Nothing she could do or say after that could be considered good. He still held to a small shred of hope, a sliver of light among all the darkness.

Her eyes extinguished that light, that hope, in an instant. All he could see were those dark eyes, ones that held a certain betraying innocence to them. Underneath, he knew those eyes were painted with venom and insanity. She was old china, beautiful and white but cracked from years of abuse. She was stained along those cracks, blood still fresh on her.

She came around the front of the man. He could barely stand to hold his head up any longer. He couldn't recall now if it was days or even weeks since he awoke in this place. He had been walking home when suddenly, everything went black. He came to and there she was, standing like an angel, framed in the harsh brightness of a utility light.

She had told him about the daisies in the ground and asked him about her new dress as soon as he woke. She twirled around in it like a top, spinning until he had become dizzy. When he had refused to compliment her, she cut out his tongue, throwing it to her puppy as a toy. That was the last thing he remembered as once more, the blackness closed in around his eyes until it enveloped them completely.

Then there was the morbid tea party she forced him to participate in. The woman had invited him proper with a paper invitation scrawled with a certain fluidity and grace that was lost among people today. He had awoken to find it hanging from his neck like an albatross. He thought for a moment it was a quite real death warrant but no, it would only signal more torture.

The guests were all dolls, some with missing eyes or clothes. Others with little skulls bashed in because they had been naughty. They had spoken filth to the woman and told her things that no one should speak of, of pretty blonde Slayers coming to teach little girls a lesson. The finger sandwiches had been real fingers and the chipped cups around the table were filled with cold, coagulated blood. She had forced him to drink and only stopped when he threw up on her lovely decorations.

Such lovely and unique decorations that she had spent so much time upon: a child's heart with dried roses stuck through it, a tattered table cloth she had stolen from a restaurant after murdering some diners, and half burned candles she had saved for such a party. The man couldn't appreciate nice things so he had to be punished like the insufferable Betsy. Betsy had such a problem with controlling her bladder and had ruined a nice party dress. Much like she had done to the man after the tea party, Betsy's face was now caved in on one side.

The woman now closed her eyes as she put her cheek to the man's. Her cheek was cold, like a cube of ice sticking to his warm, bruised and battered skin. She stroked his unmarred cheek with a chilly hand. He imagined this is what death was. She was death, with cold skin, waxy hands, and the eyes of a tortured child.

"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." She sang to him before his world went black and he felt his life slipping away.


End file.
